return

1464 the return of the king
In Sindarin the combinations ng, nd, mb, which were specially
favoured in the Eldarin languages at an earlier stage, suffered
various changes. mb became m in all cases, but still counted as a
long consonant for purposes of stress (see below), and is thus
written mm in cases where otherwise the stress might be in
doubt. 1 ng remained unchanged except initially and finally where
it became the simple nasal (as in English sing). nd became nn
usually, as Ennor ‘Middle-earth’, Q. Endóre; but remained nd at
the end of fully accented monosyllables such as thond ‘root’ (cf.
Morthond ‘Blackroot’), and also before r, asAndros ‘long-foam’.
This nd is also seen in some ancient names derived from an
older period, such as Nargothrond, Gondolin, Beleriand. In the
Third Age final nd in long words had become n from nn, asin
Ithilien, Rohan, Anórien.
vowels
For vowels the letters i, e, a, o, u are used, and (in Sindarin only)
y. As far as can be determined the sounds represented by these
letters (other than y) were of normal kind, though doubtless
many local varieties escape detection. 2 That is, the sounds were
approximately those represented by i, e, a, o, u in English
machine, were, father, for, brute, irrespective of quantity.
In Sindarin long e, a, o had the same quality as the short
vowels, being derived in comparatively recent times from them
(older é, á, ó had been changed). In Quenya long é and ó were,
when correctly 2 pronounced, as by the Eldar, tenser and ‘closer’
than the short vowels.
1 As in galadhremmin ennorath (p. 309) ‘tree-woven lands of
Middle-earth’. Remmirath (p. 107) contains rem ‘mesh’, Q. rembe, +mîr
‘jewel’.
2 A fairly widespread pronunciation of long é and ó as ei and ou, more
or less as in English say no, both in Westron and in the renderings of
Quenya names by Westron speakers, is shown by spellings such as ei,
ou (or their equivalents in contemporary scripts). But such pronunciations
were regarded as incorrect or rustic. They were naturally usual
in the Shire. Those therefore who pronounce yéni únótime ‘long-years
innumerable’, as is natural in English (sc. more or less as yainy oonoatimy)
will err little more than Bilbo, Meriadoc, or Peregrin. Frodo is said to
have shown great ‘skill with foreign sounds’.